Suffering a back injury at work is an unfortunately common outcome of an unsafe work environment.
Employers owe their employees a duty of care – this means that they have a duty of take reasonable care of their employees, for example, providing employees with a safe work environment, providing adequate training, protecting them from dangerous machinery and providing appropriate protection equipment.
Where employers breach their common law duty of care or their statutory obligations under the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 or Employers’ Liability (Defective Equipment) Act 1969, employees are susceptible to suffering from a back injury at work.
We have advised claimants in a variety of back injury claims whilst at working, ranging from falls from height, crushing injuries, manual handling/lifting injuries, or slips and trips leading to a back injury.
On average, annually, 12% of all spinal cord injuries in the UK are a result of an accident at work. If an accident was reasonably foreseeable and employees can show that their employer was negligent, then there may be claim for compensation for a back injury.